The Peaky Blinders had Garrison Lane, the industrial stronghold from which they ruled 1920s Birmingham with a iron fist.

But, just like the Shelby family controlled Brum back in the day from their no-go enclave, the Welsh capital had two streets full of brothels and beerhouses, blind alleys and shady tenements where law-abiding people also feared to tread.

Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were both renowned 'dens of infamy, shoeless feet, broken heads and flat noses', where 'every stone of the pavement had been stained at one point with human blood'.

Whitmore Lane was renamed Custom House Street, while Charlotte Street was bulldozed altogether

Yet, even those who've lived in Cardiff all their lives will probably have never even heard of them, largely because both were deemed so bad that the powers-that-be erased them from the map altogether in the late 1800s.

Indeed, were you to compare a map from 1851 to one from the present day you'd see that what was once Whitmore Lane is now Custom House Street, while Charlotte Street, well... let's just say you'll have to start digging up the lobby of the Marriott Hotel with a JCB if you've any hope of uncovering its demolished remains.

Dubbed 'an ulcer' and 'a festering sore' on the face of the area, they were home to a community of pimps and prostitutes, gangsters and thieves - with names like Kitty Pig Eyes, Mary the Cripple, The Notorious Jack Matthews, Swansea Sue, Alec The Devil, Mrs Prothero, Billy Shortlegs, Sarah Nips and Harry Kickup.

The mugshot of Swansea Dan, AKA Daniel Davies- a boatman and bully from Whitmore Lane - taken at London's Pentonville Prison in 1876 where he resided on a firearms charge. It's is one of the only photos to exist of the characters from that time.

In addition, the Glamorganshire canal - dubbed The Black Ribbon - snaked past both, and many of the boatmen also moonlighted as 'bullies' (the term given to pimps back then).

Brutal in every way, the likes of Ned Llewellyn, Liverpool Dick and the aptly named John Thomas would, as was reported in the Cardiff Merthyr Guardian in 1847, "kick and knock the poor girls about as a boy would a football".

As a result, the canal also became known for suicides with reports of prostitutes throwing themselves in desperate bids to escape the horrors of their daily lives.

There are also the news reports of numerous unwanted babies also being found in the water throughout the years - some of which were drowned, others suffocated beforehand.

The most grisly example told how one newborn's dismembered body was discovered bobbing and had to be fished out with a shovel by the poor workman who stumbled upon it.

However, like the baby found in January 1857 with its umbilical cord frantically torn rather than cut, all came into this world in the most desperate of circumstances, born to women unable to look after themselves, let alone be responsible for raising another life.

News reports like this were common place

But, rather than paint an image of females as perpetual victims, many women often figured predominantly in the community - owning and running many of the pubs and whorehouses.

Women like Mrs Prothero who, at 63 years of age, was the oldest owner of the oldest brothel in Cardiff - one which got the lion's share of the business on Whitmore Lane, not least because it was right next to where the sailors got paid off.

Or there was 'blue eyed hag' Mary The Cripple, so-called because she had withered legs and could not walk, instead often crawling along the floor in a away described as being "absolutely not human."

Artist Anthony Rhys, from Beddau in Rhondda Cynon Taff , has been researching and writing a book on the inhabitants of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane for the last two years and called her "a Victorian baddass".

Outside The Golden Cross, circa 1890

"She was an amazing woman given her circumstances," says the painter, who traced his family tree back to his great great grandfather who was born on Charlotte Street.

"Imagine being a disabled woman living in the early Victorian period and still managing to carve out for herself a 40-year career as the head of a small criminal empire, first in Newport and then in Cardiff.

"Her first arrest is recorded in 1835 when she got sent down for keeping a brothel and she was still procuring girls in Cardiff in 1876, 41 years later.

"And her son Abraham Yarwood was still running brothels in Cardiff up until the 1920s."

Rhys also joked that he'd been disappointed, having uncovered a blood connection to the area, to find out his own kin had been comparatively normal law-abiding folk.

"A 13-year-old relative of mine did turn up in one police statement I found concerning an assault, but it was only as a witness," he smiles, adding that he's trawled through countless original reports, from gaols, work houses and the newspapers of the time, to recreate the lost world.

An 1847 news report in which a man was kicked to death by four 'bullies' on Whitmore Lane

"There was nothing on the web about Charlotte and Whitmore, no books about them either, so it's been a slog - some the stuff I found out was very disturbing, especially the amount of violence that existed towards women."

It wasn't all doom and gloom though, as, after trawling through around 20,000 pages of court records he discovered two things - firstly how to decipher the spider's scrawl that typified most police clerks' handwriting; and, secondly, that they contained some of the very first documented examples of swearing in Cardiff.

"The newspapers of the day wouldn't publish bad language, so they didn't give an accurate indication of how people spoke, most of whom were very rough," says Rhys.

"Luckily, Glamorgan Archives have all the Petty Session books, the court transcribers of which were kind enough to write down loads of the obscenities used."

So, in 1860, notorious prostitute Barbara Jenkins was reported to have told passers-by on Whitmore Lane "to go f*** themselves".

Barbara Jenkins drops the 'F' bomb

Meanwhile, the following year, Margaret Jones was said to have been arguing with other working girls on Charlotte Street, calling them "bloody f****** cows" and "defying any of the buggers to come and take her on".

And, in 1863, Matilda Brown, when told to move on by a policeman, "pulled off her drawers and told him to kiss her arse".

"Thomas Williams, however, spent December 25 1861 walking around 'with his penis in his hand exposing it to respectable people'," says Rhys.

"He must have had an awesome Christmas Day that year."

Too much to drink perhaps? Not hard when you consider the 40 or so ale houses/ brothels - including The Lame Chicken, The Noah's Ark, The Flying Eagle, The Wild Wave, The Irishman's Glory and The Coal Hole - that populated the area.

However, discounting its rebuild in 1904, the only proper surviving boozer from that time is The Golden Cross, which started out as The Shield and Newcastle in 1846 before changing its name several times until settling on its current monicker.

A early photograph of the rooftops of Whitmore Lane and Charlotte Street

"It was on what would have been the corner of Whitmore Lane and Bute Street - the last place left standing where the people I've written about drank, sang, laughed, stole and lost their tempers," says Rhys.

"Nevertheless, the landlord and landlady John and Ann Platt often fell foul of the local sex workers - like Rachel Holiday, a prostitute who, along with her two sisters, went around with a Cornish thug called Harry Kickup.

"One time, after Rachel had been drinking, she started to smash the glasses and then hit Ann Platt over the head with a jug."

Similarly Billy Shortlegs - a Whitmore Lane bully and boatman - who, despite having lost both his lower legs, took umbrage at being refused service there one night (namely because he was already drunk) and hurled a pewter tankard at the landlord whilst screaming a torrent of abuse.

Anthony Rhys, whose relatives came from the notorious area of Cardiff

"He was thrown out, but still managed to force his way back in again - and this is a man with nothing below the knee."

Its troubled history aside, Rhys says he loves drinking at The Golden Cross and gets shivers each time he's there.

"I can't help but think of all the characters that feature in my book who maybe sat where I am, supping on a pint or throwing a punch," he says.

"Possibly even my own ancestors.

"So I always make sure I raise a glass and say a silent toast to the lot of them."

For more information about Anthony Rhys' book, Notorious, or the rest of his exhaustive research, go to or visit him on Twitter@ upsetvictorians